'A' tours helped South African players: Lorgat

Describing the winter international programme as a huge success, Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Haroon Lorgat feels the recent tour by 'A' sides of India and Australia has helped in developing new players for the Proteas.

The programme, for the hosts, included a triangular ODI series involving Australia A and India A followed by two four-day games with the Indian side.

"All three participating countries are to be congratulated on the quality of their cricket and the manner in which all the games were played. Both India and Australia came here with a large number of players with international experience and it was an excellent test for our rank of potential future Protea players," Lorgat said on Tuesday.

Lorgat expressed hope that such initiatives would continue in the future as well. "South Africa, Australia and India all have plenty lot of depth to their cricket and I am hopeful that this initiative is something that can be built on going forward," he said.

South Africa A levelled the two-match unofficial Test series by registering an emphatic 121-run victory over India A at Pretoria on Tuesday. India A had comprehensively won the first match by an innings and 13 runs at Rustenburg last week.

"This last match represented the best traditions of the first-class game with the one side first gaining the ascendancy and then the other fighting back to dominate," he said.